Tuesday December 16 2015  CRITICAL ARTICLE AND REVIEW

Just so you know, tonight’s blog is written as a “Critical Article and Review.  I am using Webster’s Dictionary, third definition, of CRITICAL which is: “crucial, decisive, significant and important”.  REVIEW is defined as:  “evaluation, assessment, and examination”.

As I have mentioned in the last few days I am reading “THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE HOLY” published in 1961 by A.W. Tozer.  On the first page it states that I am not to use or reproduce portions of this book “…except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.”  So thus, I am writing a critical article and review.

So…the next step… making it brief!

Tozer has written about how we as individuals live by faith all our lives whether we believe in God or not.  Most things we do not know why or how they work but we accept on faith that they do and will.  Such things as electricity or a lightning bolt, we accept without understanding.  We grow used to the things that we believe in, anything from supplied energy to nature.  We don’t ponder the wonder of things because we just take them on faith that they are.  Tozer writes, “How different are we who have grown used to it, who have become jaded with a satiety of wonder.  He quotes the following from one who lived over a hundred years before him, “It is not by our superior insight that we escape the difficulty,” says Carlyle, “it is by our superior levity, our inattention, our want of insight.  It is by not thinking that we cease to wonder at it…” 

Tozer explains how we fail to ask question and search for answers.  We just accept things of the world on faith by what is told to us and by what we have learned.  “The world after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle; wonderful, inscrutable, magical and more, to whosoever will think of it.”, Tozer writes.

His following quote is the one I like the best:  “Secularism, materialism, and the intrusive presence of things have put out the light in our souls and turned us into a generation of zombies.  We cover our deep ignorance with words, but we are ashamed to wonder, we are afraid to whisper ‘mystery’.”

I know that without reading all the pages before and after these quotes above, total understanding of what he is writing about will not shine through.  But take my word, Tozer is likening the above to a very deep spiritual aspect.  The words that are written are powerful insights as to what has happened, and still is happening, to man as they go through this world without realizing the greatness of the Triune God, and His creation.  Man can accept without understanding all that is around him, and yet, not “BELIEVE” in the one who created both them and the entire world and universe.

Perhaps one reason that it is so easy for me to believe is the fact that I have not lost my sense of wonder and awe of creation.  I have not lost my awe of life and love.  Nor have I lost my awe of the Creator Himself.  Reading these few pages in Tozer’s book gave me a deeper insight into the spiritual aspect of what it means to wonder and imagine and believe.  It is as if I have an insatiable appetite for nature and for wonder and for mystery.  Where does it come from?  Why can I never have enough?  Why do I always desire more?  Is this just how God designed me, personally, or is it God’s design for all to own this thirst for beauty and knowledge of the Creator?  I cannot answer that question.  All I know is, that I wonder, and I am not afraid to “whisper mystery”. 

God is my Mystery.  God is my Wonder. God is my Father. God is the one who lifts my head.  God is my Shield.  He is incomprehensible.  He is unfathomable.  He is UNCREATED and my mind cannot even grasp that concept, because eternity, ALWAYS WAS AND ALWAYS WILL BE.  There is no beginning and there is no no end.  AND GOD IS.  No beginning and no end.  I believe in Him simply because, how can I not?

One last “brief” paragraph from “THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE HOLY” to sum up the above:

“What God declares, the believing heart confesses without the need of further proof.  Indeed, to seek proof is to admit doubt, and to obtain proof is to render faith superfluous.  Everyone who possesses the gift of faith will recognize the wisdom of those daring words of one of the early Church fathers:  “I believe that Christ died for me because it is incredible; I believe that He rose from the dead because it is impossible.”

I BELIEVE

The following is the poem I wrote this morning during my prayer and study time with the Lord.  It is inspired by Tozer’s writings.

 

THE UNCREATED

By Kathleen Martens

December 16, 2015

 

Oh how I love You Father.

You, the only UNCREATED.

The only source that feeds my soul,

And in Your adoring presence I’m sated.

 

You satisfy all my needs

As You quench my soul’s thirsting.

You alone are my Creator

You alone, my heart’s nourishing.

 

How can I correctly ascribe

An attribute of who You are?

You are glory unfathomable,

Creator of all earth and stars.

 

So minuscule what I know.

What is true?  How can I conceive?

For You are the Father who dwells in heaven

And it is only by faith I believe.

 

What question can I ask to know

As in reverence and humility I come?

Lord teach me how to adore

THE UNCREATED, THREE IN ONE!

 

WOW!  I like that poem!  Thank You Father for your gift to me.

 

JUST BELIEVE

By Kathleen Martens

December 16, 2015

 

Stop and view the world around you.

Stop and adore our Lord’s story.

Do not even try to comprehend who God is,

Just believe, and revel in His glory.

 

Good night and God bless each of you.